1. Field
The present disclosure relates generally to manufacturing and, in particular, to manufacturing parts. Still more particularly, the present disclosure relates to incremental sheet forming using ultrasonic energy.
2. Background
Oftentimes, aircraft parts may be manufactured in limited runs or numbers. For example, one or two parts may be created as a prototype for testing. As another example, a small number of parts may be manufactured for an aircraft that is no longer in commercial production. With these types of parts, incremental sheet metal forming may be used to manufacture aircraft parts. Incremental sheet metal forming may be used to manufacture parts more cheaply and/or quickly than other techniques.
For example, without limitation, with incremental sheet metal forming, a part may be manufactured in a manner to reduce tooling costs. Further, incremental sheet metal forming may be useful when parts are needed only in limited numbers and/or for prototype testing.
In manufacturing parts, incremental sheet metal forming may be used to create a shape for a part from a sheet of material. Incremental sheet metal forming may be used with sheet metal to form a part. For example, sheet metal may be formed using a round-tipped tool, stylus, and/or some other suitable type of tool. This tool may be attached to a computer numerical control machine, a robot arm, and/or some other suitable system to shape the sheet metal into the desired shape for the part. The tool may make indentations, creases, and/or other physical changes or deformations into the sheet metal that may follow a contour for the desired part. This contour may be defined using a tool on which the stylus presses the sheet metal material.
Further, incremental sheet metal forming may be used to produce complex shapes from various materials. This type of process may provide easy part modification. For example, a part may be modified by changing the model of the part without requiring retooling or new dies.
Incremental sheet metal forming may be performed on a number of different types of sheet metal materials. For example, without limitation, incremental sheet metal forming may be performed using aluminum, steel, titanium, and/or other suitable metals.
With some sheet metal materials, the amount of force needed to shape a sheet metal may result in forces that may damage the sheet metal forming machine. With this situation, other types of techniques may be used to form the part. For example, without limitation, the parts may be stamped out of the sheet metal material using a press with dies. As another alternative, a commercially available incremental sheet metal forming machine may be modified and/or designed to accommodate the higher forces needed for thicker sheet metal materials and/or metals that may have a higher material yield strength. With materials possessing a higher material yield strength, the amount of force needed to shape the material may increase.
Modifying an incremental sheet metal forming machine or purchasing an incremental sheet metal forming machine to lower the forming forces may increase the cost for manufacturing parts. This type of solution, however, may be desirable over using other types of forming processes such as, for example, without limitation, stamping the sheet metal using dies. Even though the costs may be higher, the time needed to adjust designs may be reduced.
Thus, it would be advantageous to have a method and apparatus that takes into account at least some of the issues discussed above, as well as possibly other issues.